I am doing a lot of Washington Park recollection lately.
How many guys have gone to a dog's wake? I mean the whole works, even a eulogy?
My brother Ray and I did in the summer of '65. We worked for a school teacher, Flora Sherman, from one of those old Yankee families. We mostly just helped her around her yard, the garden, painting her fence; some house work, too, like repairing doors and replacing broken windows. We averaged $2 per hour - not bad back then.
Her little "ginger bread" house on Payton Street was right out of a Grimm's fairy tale. This was her MO: We would work for her for a couple of hours and then have to listen to her for five hours - getting paid only for "work time." You see, listening to her was just pure pleasure. She was very attached to her dog, Peggy, part collie, part German shepherd. Peggy was getting old, and one day she just quit, died.
Miss Sherman had lost her best friend in this cold, cruel world. Grief-stricken, she arranged a "human" burial.
That night, Ray and I escorted her into the Remington Funeral Home on Broad Street. The funeral director, showing all manner of respect, led us into a "mourning" room. There was Peggy, laid out "professionally" in a small, white, satin-lined coffin. There were dead humans being "prepared" nearby.
Afterward, Ray and I buried Peggy in Miss Flora's back yard. That white coffin must still be there. Sometimes I daydream about digging it up some night, not out of disrespect, but to verify the now receding past.
The coffin only cost Miss Sherman $900.
"It's times like these when you really learn who your friends are," she told the funeral director.
Late in life Miss Sherman - whom I knew as an agnostic if not an atheist, began hearing Jesus talking to her. I think she finally ended up in a nursing home.
There was an antique Hudson Hornet in her garage, almost never driven. A nephew ended up with it.
Ron Ruggieri
Warwick
How many guys have gone to a dog's wake? I mean the whole works, even a eulogy?
My brother Ray and I did in the summer of '65. We worked for a school teacher, Flora Sherman, from one of those old Yankee families. We mostly just helped her around her yard, the garden, painting her fence; some house work, too, like repairing doors and replacing broken windows. We averaged $2 per hour - not bad back then.
Her little "ginger bread" house on Payton Street was right out of a Grimm's fairy tale. This was her MO: We would work for her for a couple of hours and then have to listen to her for five hours - getting paid only for "work time." You see, listening to her was just pure pleasure. She was very attached to her dog, Peggy, part collie, part German shepherd. Peggy was getting old, and one day she just quit, died.
Miss Sherman had lost her best friend in this cold, cruel world. Grief-stricken, she arranged a "human" burial.
That night, Ray and I escorted her into the Remington Funeral Home on Broad Street. The funeral director, showing all manner of respect, led us into a "mourning" room. There was Peggy, laid out "professionally" in a small, white, satin-lined coffin. There were dead humans being "prepared" nearby.
Afterward, Ray and I buried Peggy in Miss Flora's back yard. That white coffin must still be there. Sometimes I daydream about digging it up some night, not out of disrespect, but to verify the now receding past.
The coffin only cost Miss Sherman $900.
"It's times like these when you really learn who your friends are," she told the funeral director.
Late in life Miss Sherman - whom I knew as an agnostic if not an atheist, began hearing Jesus talking to her. I think she finally ended up in a nursing home.
There was an antique Hudson Hornet in her garage, almost never driven. A nephew ended up with it.
Ron Ruggieri
Warwick
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